Plunder: A Faye Longchamp Mystery #7 (Faye Longchamp Series) (25 page)

He’d spread copies of maps across her kitchen table and laid published papers beside them, blathering nonsense about job-seeking as he did it. She noticed that he’d chosen maps that covered a broad area, and he’d made no notes on these copies. He was being oh-so-careful to avoid letting her pinpoint the spot that interested him, but there was no doubt that he was trying to pick her brain. Again, classic behavior for a man seeking lost treasure.

Faye so desperately wished she knew the world-famous Dr. Peter Morgan well enough to call him and ask for his impressions of Dane Sechrist, but she did not. She did, however, know her cousin Bobby Longchamp very well, and Dane couldn’t possibly have known the consequences of showing her a handful of maps and journals that were clearly labeled as being from the Historic New Orleans Collection.

Dane, by his own admission, was on a first-name basis with staff at the state archives. Judging by the origin of his research materials, Faye would bet that he was also best-friends-forever with the staff of the Historic New Orleans Collection. Bobby wasn’t on staff there, but he might as well be. He was also an accomplished people-watcher and an incurable gossip.

As with any conversation with Bobby Longchamp, this phone call was going to take a while. Still, by the time Dane Sechrist had piloted his boat back to the spot where he hoped to find endless riches, Faye would have gotten Bobby to spill his guts. After she’d explained what she wanted to know, she fully expected him to be able to sweet-talk the collection’s staff into telling him every last detail of Dane’s research interests.

With Bobby’s research skills, he might even be able to ferret out the truth of whether the man was a pedophile or not. Then Faye could sleep better at night. Maybe.

***

“One child isn’t enough for you, Cousin dear? Tell me again why you’ve acquired a teenaged appendage. Doesn’t she have actual relatives to take responsibility for her?”

For a man whose etiquette was acquired at the knee of a blue-blooded mother who thought the Queen of England’s bloodlines were a bit suspect, Bobby certainly didn’t mince words.

“Amande isn’t an ‘appendage.’ She’s—she’s my friend. And, oh, Bobby, if you could meet her aunt and uncle and stepfather. To call them worthless drunks would be to insult drunks everywhere.”

The sarcasm left Bobby’s voice, but he still made his position clear. “There are children all over the world who are in the custody of worthless drunks, my dear. Jodi comes home from the police station crying over them, sometimes. She can’t save them all, and neither can you. I know the situation breaks your heart, but what makes you think you can save this one?”

“That’s why Amande is different. She doesn’t need saving. She could take care of herself right now, if she was of legal age and if she could be someplace where there weren’t a bunch of scumbags running around. Hell. A place where
fewer
scumbags were running around would be an improvement.”

“And you think I might know one of those scumbags?”

“About six feet tall, dark tan, really short blond hair. Broad shoulders. Muscles. Mid-twenties. His name is Dane Sechrist.”

Bobby gave a gossip’s short and gleeful chuckle. “I
do
know him. The man’s on the hunt for sunken treasure, unless I miss my guess.”

“I think so, too. What do you know about him?”

“Not much more than that. He’s in the collection’s map room so much that he can’t possibly be burdened with a job. I didn’t like his looks, so I spent an afternoon hovering around and trying to make him nervous.”

“It worked, no doubt.”

“So it appeared. I also sicked Dauphine on him.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did.”

“Bobby, that’s cruel.”

A laugh emanated from her cell phone that did, in fact, sound vaguely cruel. “I know. But Dauphine’s so bored with this library work you’ve got her doing. She wants to be digging up things, and she wants to be chasing your little rug rat around. Giving Dane Sechrist the evil eye will keep her so distracted and happy that her leg will heal quicker. I wouldn’t be surprised if her blood sugar comes down, too.”

“Okay. You have my permission to keep torturing the man. What can you tell me about his research interests?”

“I do not think Dane wanted me to get a good look at what he was working on. Fortunately, these maps and photos are like my children. I know precisely where Mr. Sechrist is diving for treasure. I can tell you the very USGS quadrangle. From that, you can get latitude and longitude and any GPS will take you straight there. Hang on a second. I stepped outside to talk to you, but I can go back in there and pull the coordinates right quick.”

Bobby was back in the time it took Faye to conduct a fruitless web search for Dane Sechrist. It took less time than that for Faye to poke the coordinates he gave her into a mapping program and pull up a photographic image of the area. Why wasn’t she surprised to see that Amande’s island was just west of the center of that photo?

Chapter Twenty-one

Joe eased his big frame back into the rented boat and shoved away from the muddy shore. This was the good part of archaeology. He was outdoors. The sun was shining hard enough for him to break a slight sweat. The air was dead still, but not when the boat was skimming atop the dark water. The wind rushing past dried the sweat off his face, and it blew away his cares.

Faye should be here.

He’d spent the morning ground-truthing the work done by Faye’s hired data-gatherers. He’d found the foundations of an old fort right where they’d said it would be, although rising water levels made it look more like a little-bitty island than a relic of an old war. He’d walked the site and taken some pictures, then checked the list for his next destination.

Joe’s job today wasn’t to explore or excavate. He was just supposed to confirm whether the archaeological remnant was there or not. This one was. So he moved on.

His next stop was at a shell mound, as close to the water as the fort’s foundations had been, according to his maps. The bayous and ditches and ever-shifting land had forced him to navigate by GPS and depth-finder today, and he wasn’t happy about it. Joe could usually look at a map once, then get himself where he was going. He was pretty sure he could have done that today, but these bayous and ditches and mudflats were a special case. He needed the depth-finder to keep from running aground in water that was a different depth than it had been yesterday, or even five minutes ago. And he needed the GPS to keep him on-track after he’d made twelve detours around shallow spots that his depth-finder had warned him to avoid.

This mound was easily found, and it was actually on dry land, putting the lie to the maps that had said otherwise. He hadn’t been expecting much, so he wasn’t disappointed. Faye’s researchers had said that it was small, and only a couple of feet tall, if that. They’d been correct. What they couldn’t have known was that it had suffered the punishment dealt to any accessible piece of high ground in this flat place. It was covered with ruts made by dirt bikes and four-wheelers. It was also pocked with holes dug by people looking for cool and potentially valuable stuff.

Joe wasn’t sure there was any point in documenting this mess, but he took some pictures, anyway. As he picked his way through the mudholes left behind by tires that belonged to cretins, he spotted a tiny beige bead trampled in the mud. He squatted down and took a picture, considering whether he should take it to Faye. This one little bead might tell her a whole book full of stuff about this site.

He thought about it a minute, then came up with a better plan. He wouldn’t take the bead to Faye. He would take Faye to the bead.

His wife did not become an archaeologist so that she could manage employees and watch budgets. If she didn’t get her hands in the dirt soon, she was going to make herself sick. Joe had been meditating on this issue for days, and he expected to solve it soon, even if the answer required another night spent smoking tobacco and looking at the stars.

The contract researchers were working out. Faye also had contract archaeologists out ground-truthing sites too far away for Joe to visit, and that setup was working fine, too. If…when…they eventually had a report written, she had people ready to do the typing and graphics. How hard would it be to hire an assistant project manager to help Faye shuffle those spreadsheets?

Joe knew the hardest part would be getting Faye to agree to this plan. Fortunately, he also knew his wife. If he got her out in the field, she’d be so happy that she’d agree to anything that would keep her there.

Joe wasn’t a manipulative sort, but sometimes wife management required a man to resort to underhanded tactics.

***

Faye’s handsome husband filled the doorframe, broad shoulders stretching from doorjamb to doorjamb. She was always happy to see him, but today he was carrying a paper bucket full of fried chicken and a bag of potato chips.

“Let’s take the boat out.”

Faye took a look at the work piled on the table in front of her, then she took a look at the sunshine that streamed through the door and cast a big black shadow of Joe on the carpet.

“This morning’s fieldwork went fine,” he said, “but I think I need a PhD to look at this one site.”

It was nice of Joe to give Faye an excuse to drop her paperwork like a bad habit, but he’d had her at “Let’s take the boat out.” She closed her laptop and threw some diapers and an already-prepared bottle in the diaper bag.

She peeked in the diaper bag again and saw bathing suits, a bottle of sunscreen, and hats for her and for Michael. If they were going to pretend to work, they should probably take some gear.

“What kind of equipment do we need?”

“The boat’s loaded. Let’s go.”

Joe was indeed the best husband and business partner in the whole wide world.

With every step away from her paperwork and into the sunshine, Faye felt lighter and freer…until her eyes rested on the houseboat where Amande was trapped with Didi and Tebo. That poor girl.

Faye was never clear on how it was that Joe could read her mind. Maybe he heard a slight catch in her breath. Maybe he saw a miniscule hesitation in her step. Maybe he was conscious of her tiniest eye movements.

Whatever arcane psychic methods Joe used, they worked. He put a hand between her shoulder blades and guided her toward the dock. “She’s waiting for us in the boat.”

Seconds later, Faye got to see Amande grin as she heard Michael crow, “A-mah!” for herself.

***

Joe had done an amazing thing when he spotted that barely visible bead. Faye was a better photographer than he was, so she’d spent a pleasant quarter hour searching for the perfect angle to show off its ancient patina. This required her to wallow in the mud atop the mound, adding an extra dimension to Joe’s observation that she looked happier than a pig in slop.

While she was doing this, Joe crawled over the mound until he spotted a potsherd half the size of his pinkie nail, which gave her the happy chance to do some more muddy camera work. Amande and Michael whiled away the time by chatting with three preteen kids who’d gathered to see what was going on. Faye thoroughly enjoyed overhearing scraps of their conversation. Amande was in fine form as a community educator.

“You guys need to find another place to ride your bikes. You’re messing up important stuff.”

“Yeah!” Michael added helpfully.

“It’s just a pile o’ dirt, but it’s a good place to ride,” said the obvious leader, shoving her overlong bangs out of her eyes. “Franky catches air nearly every time. Sometimes Ginny does, too.”

Franky jutted out his prepubescent jaw in pride. Ginny chewed on her pigtail.

“It’s
not
just a pile of dirt! Indians built it…oh…hundreds of years ago. Maybe thousands. See these oyster shells? That’s what they ate.” Amande brushed a little sand off a shell protruding from the mound’s chewed-up side. “And come see what Michael’s daddy found.”

“Dah!” shouted her tiny assistant.

Franky and Ginny and their talkative friend gathered around Faye and her camera.

“It ain’t much of a bead. It looks like something that fell out of a bean bag. You know—those little white spongy balls. I’ve got a thousand of ‘em on the floor of my closet.”